What Dan did Next...

Its strikes me as slightly strange that as I write this entry I am approaching my 4 month anniversary away from home and in this foreign land. In many ways it feels like I have reached the home stretch of what has been an experience that has challenged and changed me in many ways. It has been a time when all the things I ‘know’ have been shaken and tested. When my faith has sometimes been all I have to hold onto and my family has been a real tower of strength with me…
But after all that talk of finality and things coming to an end I still have two months to go. And it seems to me that those two months are going to be the busiest, though you wont here me complaining. The end of January holds a week long event called ‘Envisioning’. As far as I can tell Envisioning week is a week where you have meetings all day long full or worship and talks aimed at the vision and mission of new hope. In other words it’s a week of extra long church. Church out here is usually a rather entertaining event, I have learned to love the worship, lack of African drum and cranked up presence of the cheesy keyboard not withstanding. The enthusiasm, passion and simplicity of the songs is rather contagious and I have been found clapping and dancing like a moron on a few occasions. A week of that however is not a particularly comfortable thought. A few rumbling of Dan reassuming his child care duties during the event have been heard and I can’t say I'm upset about the thought. The Clay children however will soon have another climbing poll, punch bag, insult tester, lunch server and baby sitter.
As of the tenth of January the guest house key will change hands, with only a slight…ok with a large amount of regret from yours truly. Aunty Katharine will be the new resident and as a result I will be moving into a room with Jed and Moses. As you can imagine I wasn’t amazingly joyous about the prospect of spending my final two months with no sleep or privacy to speak of. Therefore when the Browns offered for me to move into their spare room for the remainder of my stay I accepted. I don’t look forward to moving out of the Clays house and off the farm at all. I have made many friends with the guys who work on and around the farm as well as growing closer to Dave and Raych in the past months.
Moving up to New Hope makes sense from another angle though as I will be working with Steve Brown. The week after Envisioning is known as ‘P7 week’. P7 week is a way of welcoming the Kids in the school into their last year of primary (hence the P) school before their first year of secondary (S1, S2, S3 and so on). The week consists of games, talks and various silly team style activities designed to gel the group together for their final year of primary school.
After that I will be involved in a larger way with the Investment year. In early to mid February the investment year are having a two week long vocational course teaching them the basics of all sorts of trades as long as a little about the business world. Steve will be organizing a lot of this and I hope to be a big part of that as well. In between all that activity I will be doing work at the Clinic. New hope is mean to slowly repopulate over then next week and we are expecting people to come back with plenty of malaria. Plenty of ‘customers’ as Uncle Roger calls them.
Christmas out here was really fun. I woke up on the big day with the sun shining outside and a nice stack of presents awaiting me. My little stash of sweets and goodies grew considerably that day so you wont here me complaining. We went off to church at ten and I was surprised and impressed to be met with carols. I must confess I didn’t sing any because I was too busy trying to contain myself. A personal favorite was, ‘Oh come all ye faithful’ sang twice as fast and twice as high. Church was followed but a brief visit to the Browns which was flooded with presents from those back home supporting the family on their first Christmas away. We then had Christmas dinner. If I had it my way I would have had turkey with as many trimmings as you can imagine and more with a glass of wine in hand, a cracker in the other and a stupid hat on my head surrounded by family. What I got was Matoke, Chicken, Pork, Beef, Chapatti, watermelon, a Coke and a sill hat I found in Kampala on my head. But I was surrounded my family and upon reflection although it wasn’t Christmas at home, it still was pretty good.
The last few days my roommate Peter (spending his holidays with us) and I have been doing various odd jobs around the house. And when I say odd, I mean odd. This morning we replaced a section of the tin roof, yesterday I painted the guest house, on new years day I cleared out a kind of overhead storage area with enough bat poo to fertilize a small farm but the most fun was playing Rat Busters.
Over the past few weeks we have become aware that we are not alone in the house. On Christmas Eve I was on the verge of saying, “T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house…”when a small mouse ran from the cover of the sofa to the book shelf. After that there were many creatures (mainly the pink two legged variety) stirring (and screaming) around the house trying to get the new visitor out. Raych and I finally mad a run for it out of cushions, opened the door and banged around until the little fella scampered out. We then went to Entebbe for a quick Christmas break (great food, average weather and swimming every day) only to return to the news that Peter had killed a rat the day before. So when Peter and I were told the clear out the kitchen because there might be a rat there, we pretty much knew what was coming before it jumped off the top shelf landed on my shoulder, climbed down my back, landed on my foot and ran into the parent’s bedroom. Big mummy Rat was hiding on the top shelf behind a Jerry can and after a solid ten minutes of Battle in the bedroom, Peter and I finally emerged triumphant with a big rat still alive but stunned swinging from its tail. The rat was taken outside, placed on a wooden block and made very close friends with a Panga…you may be wondering why I called it Mummy Rat. Well it wasn’t a slip of the finger. Apparently in our absence Mummy rat found a home in the kitchen, had babies, met peter and I and was no more. The babies however met their end when their mother’s choice of home fell slightly short. Raych decided to make some good old British scones and upon lighting up the oven some rather pained squeaks met our ears. The three baby rats were found in the bottom of the oven, slightly toasted and mostly dead… (I put one out of its misery). All the Rats now gone we all slept a little sounder.
Until three in the morning when Daddy rat came to check on the family but got lost…in Dave and Raych’s room. This time Dave had a 30 minute battle on his own, emerging the victor…for now. We are now confident all the Rats have gone. So no doubt I will be finding, hunting and killing more in the not to distant future.
I write this on the third which means I have only a week left in the guest house. I will be very sad to move out but I hopefully move on to bigger and better things. Until I write again I hope you’re all well and nicely rounded after the holidays. I look forward to seeing you all again in March. Take care,
Uncle Dan